A Heavy Heart
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: Oneshot. There are a lot of misconceptions about eating disorders: one is that men don't get them, another is that they only involve starving oneself.


A Heavy Heart

Kelly Severide opened the door to the fridge and noted the sparse contents. Staying at Casey's apartment, and knowing the man as long as he had, he knew that as a general rule Casey seldom kept much food stocked except for leftover pizza and plenty of beer. But even by those standards the fridge was looking fairly empty these days, especially since Severide had been around to assist in the grocery shopping. Right off hand he noted the leftovers from last night were gone, so were the ones from the night before that, and night before last shift. Also missing was half of the meat he'd bought for sandwiches, a six-pack of yogurt and a half empty jar of pickles. And Kelly knew why.

He wasn't exactly sure when it started, but he had a good idea why it started.

They'd had a particularly bad call a few weeks back, a house fire that was already blazing out of control just in the time it took them to respond. There had been a whole family trapped inside, and despite all their efforts, they hadn't been able to save them in time. Two parents and five kids, ages 6-14. Those were the things that haunted a firefighter to his dying day. In the past the fire department expected its men to just walk away from scenes like that and shake it off, these days they knew better, but despite knowing this, not everybody sought the same professional help to cope with it.

After the initial wave of everybody not being able to eat had passed, that's when Severide started to notice things.

The next shift, Cindy had stopped by with two large containers of homemade cookies for everyone, one container was already half empty when everyone came back to the kitchen. Everybody figured it had been each other that had taken them, but Kelly remembered that Casey had been the only one passing through the room in between. He didn't say anything, at the time he just figured Casey was getting first dibs before they disappeared entirely. Then over the next couple shifts he noticed the fridge at 51 was starting to get barer shelves than before as well, and noticed more wrappers in the trash than usual, chip bags, doughnut boxes, candy bar wrappers. He still didn't put it together, until the next night at home when he saw Casey fill up his plate with easily twice as much food as he normally ate, all the while seeming to pay no mind to it whatsoever. Despite Casey's slighter build he always had an appetite, all firefighters did, but even Kelly had been stunned when Matt got up to clear the table and his plate was empty. One time could be overlooked, but Kelly started to notice the same thing happening again in the days to come.

Modern society was starting to get more in tune with the psychology of how things worked, one of them, Severide knew from paying attention over the years, was recognizing that compulsive eating was just as much a mental problem instead of a physical one as starving yourself was. And the reasons why were pretty obvious to spot in their line of work. Where it used to be the norm for most guys to just drink their problems into oblivion, or others seeking a similar result with pills or drugs, other people used the same process with food, it was easily accessible, always on hand and most people never paid enough attention to inquire, as they might with someone at a bar on his 12th drink, if you'd had enough for one time. And it had been plenty obvious to Severide that that's what was going on here, that Casey's behavior had suddenly come out of nowhere had mildly taken him aback, but the signs were still obvious. And knowing that Casey was an expert in shutting down his emotions and internalizing what was going on with him, Kelly realized that this shouldn't be so surprising. He'd heard it enough over the years, that's what people did, they ate to bottle up their emotions and keep everything stuffed in them instead of dealing with it. And thus they became a society with people who weighed over 400 pounds.

It wasn't that Severide was worried that Casey would eventually start to _wear_ the damage of what he was doing to himself, their lifestyles were active enough he'd burn most of it off in time, but in the meantime he knew that Casey was already feeling like crap because of the call, because they hadn't been able to save the family, but what he was doing could only be making him feel as bad physically as he was mentally. And despite knowing this, Kelly hadn't said anything. What could he say? They'd all been there before, everybody processed deaths on the job in their own way, and if somebody tried to invade that bubble, heads got bitten off, as he well remembered from Andy's own death several years earlier. Looking back on his own behavior back then he cringed when he thought about what he'd said to Casey, and he knew what he could expect from Matt if he approached the Truck lieutenant: Casey would deny anything was wrong, insist he was fine, and tell Kelly to mind his own damn business, and that would be if Kelly got lucky.

Kelly sighed as he closed the refrigerator door. It was hard as hell to just stand by watching someone struggle, but he also knew it was futile to reach out to somebody who didn't want it, if Casey was going to bring it up, it had to be on his own time, if he was going to deal with his problem, that had to be on his own time too. So, impossible as it felt, Kelly resigned himself to just standing by, and keeping an eye on his friend and making sure things didn't get too far out of control. Right now they weren't looking at anymore damage than Casey putting a few thousand extra calories in his body a week, which once he decided to do something about it, could easily be resolved. But, Kelly was also well aware of the fact that one compulsive behavior could easily be swapped for another, heavy drinking, drugs, etc., and right now he wasn't confident that Casey was beyond the realm of slipping down that slope.

* * *

"What?" Casey asked during dinner, when he noticed Kelly looking at him.

Severide blinked. "Nothing."

He'd been seeing the same thing happening for weeks now, but it still blew his mind to watch his best friend sit down and absently eat enough food for two people. Anybody who hadn't been paying close enough attention wouldn't think much of it, one potato became two, sometimes three, one piece of chicken became two, a pizza that previously lasted the two of them for three days was gone by the second, a couple beers became the whole six-pack. The other day Casey had done the grocery shopping for the week and Kelly hadn't been oblivious to extra stuff that he'd brought home, a bag of powdered doughnuts that was already half empty, a pan of brownies that was already gone last night. Kelly still had no idea how to confront Casey about what was going on without him getting defensive and shutting Kelly out, but it was honestly starting to scare him watching Casey carry on like this every day. But, he knew if Casey _was_ going to open up to anyone about what was going on, it wouldn't be anyone else, so Kelly had to bide his time and wait him out. He just worried how much worse things could get before they reached that point.

* * *

Casey leaned back against the wall and groaned. He'd felt lousy all day but after dinner it had just gotten worse. He was dizzy, his head was throbbing, he could feel his blood pulsing in his ears, he was tired, he felt hot, he felt like he was going to lose his balance, he felt...he felt...

Turning on his heel Casey ran for the bathroom and went down on his knees just as he started violently throwing up.

He didn't know when it was all finally over, when it was he was so exhausted and so weak he couldn't even stand up at first. He could actually _feel_ all the color gone out of his face, his eyes felt like they were about to pop out entirely, like somebody was trying to scoop them out, and he was very much aware of each and every single tear that had been wrenched out of them and streaked his face. Matt curled up in a ball on the floor and moaned in excruciating misery. Even if it wasn't physically possible, he felt like he'd just regurgitated every single thing he'd eaten in the last month. He felt like there wasn't anything left in his body except for his bones.

When he finally found the strength to get to his feet, he gripped the sink counter for balance, then rinsed his mouth out, and splashed cold water on his face, then haphazardly dried it on a hand towel, and left the bathroom.

Kelly never came in to see how he was, but he was standing right outside the door with a green can of ginger ale in his hand.

"You had a couple of these hidden in the back of the fridge," he said simply as he held it out in offering.

Casey felt his hands shaking as he took it. "Don't say it."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Kelly replied.

Casey took a cautious sip of the soda and told him, "Let me save you the trouble. Yes I knew I had a problem, and don't ask me why since I knew that, I didn't do anything about it. I don't know why I didn't."

"Casey, you don't owe me any explanation," Severide responded.

"You knew, didn't you?" Casey asked accusingly.

Kelly nodded. "And I'm also the last guy to give advice, you know that."

"Never stopped you before," Casey sniped.

Kelly let that go because he knew Casey was still feeling like crap and needed somebody to take it out on.

"I know," he responded. "Casey, everybody at 51 is sick about what happened to that family, but there wasn't anything we could've done."

"I know that," Casey said.

"We didn't put in any less effort than we always do, it was horrible, but we're not at fault."

"I _know_ that," Casey replied. "But I can't accept it."

Casey sighed and pressed the flat of his hand against his cheek and said, "I don't know...how many more times I can see somebody die on this job...I don't know how many more calls like that I can take...before I walk off entirely."

"Matt," Kelly's voice lowered a notch, "every single firefighter at 51 knows exactly how you feel, anybody who's ever lost someone on a call knows what it's like...we're all in the same boat."

"Oh yeah? Then how come I'm the only one puking my guts up over it?" Casey asked.

"Because you're the only one who thinks this is somehow your fault," Kelly answered.

Casey choked and Kelly thought he was going to throw up again, instead he dropped his head to his chest and started sobbing, "Those kids..."

Kelly pulled Casey against him in a hug and held his friend as he cried. "I know, Matt, I know..."

Casey dropped his head on Kelly's shoulder, "Every time...I think I can't do this again..."

"We all do, Casey, we all do," Kelly responded as he rubbed Casey's back.

He felt Casey's body shaking against his for several minutes as he continued to cry. Kelly patted his back and told him, "Hey, come on, Casey, you're just going to make yourself sick again, you need to calm down."

Matt bitterly laughed as he pulled back and told Kelly, "There's nothing _left_." He took another sip of the ginger ale, and seemed to have calmed down, least of all enough for his voice to be strong as he said, "I can't talk to anyone else about this, not my men on Truck, you know that."

"I know," Kelly said as he reached over and wiped away some of the tears rolling down his cheek. "Come on, let's get you to bed."

* * *

Kelly entered Casey's bedroom carrying a glass of water and a sleeve of saltines and set them both on the nightstand within his reach. The lights were out and he could just barely make out the shape of the lieutenant laying in the bed.

"Feeling better yet?" he asked.

Casey was changed for bed and had the covers pulled up to his chin and looked like he was almost asleep, almost.

"Not really."

Kelly remained where he stood and looked down at Casey.

"You want me to stay with you?"

Casey pulled the covers tighter and responded, "You don't need to do that."

"I know...do you _want_ me to?" Kelly asked again.

Casey looked down at the covers for a minute, then uncertainly glanced over towards Kelly and hesitantly asked, "Would you?"

As an answer, Kelly went around and crawled in on the other side of the bed. Casey closed his eyes, then opened them again when he felt a hand on the top of his head.

"Hey," Kelly said, getting his attention, "you know I'm just one room away, right? If you need to talk to someone, I'm _right_ here."

"You were there, you saw what I saw," Casey replied, "what was I going to say?"

"Who better _to_ tell?" Kelly responded. "Look, I know I'm losing a lot of credibility here, but you've got to take better care of yourself."

"I know," Casey groaned.

"On the bright side, at least you didn't do too much damage," Kelly told him, "other than eating enough sugar to put everyone in Berwyn in a coma."

Casey cupped his hands over his face as he broke out laughing.

"Hey," Kelly leaned over and kissed Casey on the forehead and told him, "Love you, now go to sleep, you'll feel better tomorrow."

"Thanks, Kelly."

* * *

"Hey Severide, you got a minute?" Herrmann asked during the next shift.

Kelly turned in his seat with an eyebrow raised. It was rare that anybody came into his quarters, especially anybody off Truck.

"Yeah, what's up, Herrmann?" he asked.

Herrmann pointed over towards Casey's quarters and asked, "Is Casey alright, do you know?"

"Why?"

"Guy's been quiet all day and hardly eaten anything," Herrmann told him.

Kelly wanted to laugh. Nobody noticed when Casey was eating himself sick, but now that he was recovering from that purge, _now_ people were starting to notice.

Kelly brushed it off, "He was throwing up last night."

"Oh great, we got another one of those going around?" Herrmann asked, "Just great, Lee Henry's gonna go to school, get it, bring it home, then _everyone_ in my family's gonna be killing each other for the bathroom."

This time Kelly did laugh. "No nothing like that...I think he just ate something that didn't agree with him."

* * *

As much as Kelly had come to keep an eye on Casey before he was sick, he was especially vigilant after the fact, just to make sure that the pendulum hadn't swung to the opposite extreme and Casey traded gorging himself for starving himself. By comparison in the days that followed, he ate like a bird, but Kelly noted that he _was_ eating, though even by comparison of how he normally ate he was still eating like a bird. For a straight week he subsided on little more than plain toast or a bowl of bran flakes for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and a can of soup for dinner. As far as Kelly could figure, it wasn't that Casey was worried he might resort back to his previous habits, just slowly building his system up to tolerate his normal diet again. In truth he did have a few concerns, but again, he decided to watch and wait and see what happened, figuring that eventually things would be back to the way they were.

* * *

Casey groaned and pushed his plate away, which still contained half of a baked potato and the filet of his T-bone steak he'd had for dinner, the other half of the potato, the larger cut of meat, and the pile of steamed asparagus that had accompanied it were long gone.

"You okay?" Kelly asked as he popped another piece of his steak in his mouth.

Casey let out another groan and responded, "I eat one more bite, I'm gonna pop."

Kelly reached over with his fork and stabbed the slightly pink filet and asked, "Mind if I have this then?"

Matt weakly got out a small laugh and replied, "Knock yourself out."


End file.
